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I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

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Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#151

Post by jolux »

"Why would they?

There's been lots of noise lately about how conservatives don't respect science or the intellectual sphere. Why would they? They know we're politically biased."

This is where it took a turn for me. I'm basically in agreement with everything else, and it's personally eye opening to gain a greater understanding of these kinds of biases, but when you take a few bad apples in the social sciences (literally what? five? six?) and extrapolate that out to justify distrust of all of science, it becomes problematic.

The leftists I know (not including myself, though I share similar views) don't dislike conservative attitudes towards social science or other "soft" sciences, in fact most of them take it as a foregone conclusion that conservatives won't like them. They dislike point blank denial of facts such as that of human-caused climate change perpetuated mostly by conservative think tanks and consumed by an undereducated population of people who legitimately don't know better.

The problem is really that we live in a culture that does not value education very highly, nor does it enable good forms of it for the majority of our nation.

And just for fun, let's take the opposites of this so-called "urban intellectualism" that is expressed with these characteristics:

"... is ingenious, a deep thinker." vs. is dumb, a shallow thinker.

"... values artistic, esthetic experiences." vs. values uncreative, ugly experiences

"... is inventive." vs is uninventive

"... is sophisticated in art, music, and literature." vs. knows nothing of art, music, or literature

"... likes to reflect, play with ideas" vs likes to avoid introspection, take things at face value, and move on.

Pardon me if a few of those don't seem obviously better to more than just liberals than their alternatives. I know a lot of conservatives who would be exceptionally proud to call themselves inventive, sophisticated, deep thinkers with passions in art and literature.

You're doing intellectual conservatism a disservice by acting like these are all things conservatives would be offended to see described as "openness." If being an intellectual, sophisticated person is synonymous with being a blinkered bourgeois intellectual liberal then I'm friends with an awful lot of blinkered bourgeois liberals who are also big fans of Austrian economics.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#152

Post by jolux »

fleitz wrote: post #138
striking wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Climate conferences, academia Are you sure the two are exactly alike? I realize there's a lot of soft science that's ridiculous, but it's generally accepted that global warming exists.

It's fairly well understood that most organizations exist to perpetuate themselves. If GW doesn't exist a whole tonne of organization cease to exist, just as if GW does exist a whole tonne of organizations cease to exist. Oddly, you'll find that organizations opinions on GW align fairly well with their source of funding. GW is a hugely political topic, and in my estimation has little to do with hard science anymore.

You've provided no evidence of anything you've laid out here and you're trying to disprove a theory agreed upon by 99% of scientists with indirect arguments about their source of funding. Why exactly should I believe you? I'd love to hear more about all of these points but find it hard to trust them currently.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#153

Post by RightWingRabble »

thieving_magpie wrote: post #145
RightWingRabble wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. The left made the personal political, not the right. They're the ones who say we're not allowed to have jobs if we think the wrong thoughts or have the wrong opinions. Even the worst bible-thumping rednecks I know (many, many cousins of both sides of the family) will agree to disagree and behave in a civil manner in the presence of those with whom they disagree. When I was living in San Francisco, I've been li…

I think you're color blind on this one. >Even the worst bible-thumping rednecks I know (many, many cousins of both sides of the family) will agree to disagree and behave in a civil manner in the presence of those with whom they disagree. You've got to be kidding me. You (and I) are from the land of Jim Crow. My high school's prom was segregated until the late 90's. I worry for the safety of anyone openly gay in my ho…

When was the last time a gay in your home town was actually strung up? How about a black man? As a direct contrast, the number of minorities in my little hometown has increased at a startling rate the past 3 years. People mumble and grumble, but none of them would ever consider not hiring one of them because they were black/mexican/democrat.

Thank you for perfectly demonstrating my point.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#154

Post by druddha »

engi_nerd wrote: post #144
druddha wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a belief. I said "...may limit your capacity to effectively perform your job." Providing a list of Christian scientists does not disprove my statement. Obviously being religious doesn't necessarily mean you will perform at a lower level relative to your peers. But to borrow from Sam Harris, if you met a scientist who openly admitted to believing Elvis is still alive, would you hold the same opinion of them p…

Honestly? I've worked with so many absolutely brilliant people who had beliefs in other areas of life that I found baffling and confusing that I would just shrug and file that away as an eccentricity.

Being brilliant doesn't necessarily make you a good scientist.

Skepticism is a core quality of being a scientist. Believing in something without proof is contrary to being skeptical. Thus, believing in god or Elvis are anti-scientific beliefs.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#155

Post by engi_nerd »

druddha wrote: post #154
engi_nerd wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly? I've worked with so many absolutely brilliant people who had beliefs in other areas of life that I found baffling and confusing that I would just shrug and file that away as an eccentricity.

Being brilliant doesn't necessarily make you a good scientist. Skepticism is a core quality of being a scientist. Believing in something without proof is contrary to being skeptical. Thus, believing in god or Elvis are anti-scientific beliefs.

You make good points. Skepticism is a core quality of being a scientist.

But people are remarkably good at erecting fences in their minds. Many of those brilliant people I refer to (I call them brilliant because of their past good work in science) were able to sort of build a fence in their mind around their work and let irrational beliefs take root around it. So they were not true scientists in all aspects of their lives.

Believing in God doesn't necessarily make you a bad scientist, either.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#156

Post by druddha »

peterhadlaw wrote: post #150
druddha wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No reaction. That something provides you with comfort does not make it true.

If you look at the parent of my comment, you'll see that I wasn't referring to if [what the doctors have faith in] is true or not but rather their faith enables (some of) them to do what they would otherwise not be able to do. Which is contrary to the parent's comment stating that having faith would deem you less capable of fulfilling your job.

That was my comment, and I was speaking strictly about sciences (as the previous commenter said he works in a CS department at a university).

Even so, your counterpoint still holds no water. Just because many of them turn to faith during difficult times does not mean they necessarily perform their job function at a higher level as a result.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#157

Post by RightWingRabble »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #54
RightWingRabble wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. The left made the personal political, not the right. They're the ones who say we're not allowed to have jobs if we think the wrong thoughts or have the wrong opinions. Even the worst bible-thumping rednecks I know (many, many cousins of both sides of the family) will agree to disagree and behave in a civil manner in the presence of those with whom they disagree. When I was living in San Francisco, I've been li…

This is clearly wrong unless you posthumously redefine all right-wing political violence as being leftist. Though, really, "left" and "right" are useless terms without defining your usage of them beforehand. Rest assured, there are many right-wingers who are all too willing to make the personal political and to stifle dissent. In fact, that's more-or-less a signature distinction of the New Right that emerged around t…

I'm not going to get bogged down in a "no true scotsman" fallacial argument. People define themselves by these terms and the terms are also widely used. If you can't figure them out, that's on you.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#158

Post by ghaff »

druddha wrote: post #130
FussyZeus wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's less a generalization of everyone who has a degree being incapable of performing that task (I'd imagine a lot would be able to figure it out, it's not complicated) and more the idea that knowledge which is highly useful such as that is viewed as being "beneath" knowledge such as a thorough understanding of the writings of Socrates. The catch there is that knowing Socrates isn't getting you off the side of the ro…

Knowing how to change a flat is not "highly useful" knowledge if you have a AAA membership. The reason changing a flat is considered "beneath" knowledge like understanding Socrates ideas is because it takes time and effort to comprehend complex, abstract topics. Whereas changing a tire is an easy skill to learn for any person. In fact, a scholarly person refusing to learn how to change a flat tire is of benefit to so…

The basic idea that you're expressing isn't entirely unreasonable--not everyone should spend the time to become a competent auto mechanic just because. And it's not unreasonable to just take your car in to get the oil changed. However, you're probably getting downvoted because:

1. AAA isn't always there at your beck and call. 2. The mechanics of changing a flat don't exactly take years of training. 3. Some degree of self-reliance is generally desirable although that degree may be a reasonable topic for debate.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#159

Post by sov »

creshal wrote: post #37
CM30 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, pretty much this. It's also often the case with certain media outlets and politicians too, who make the assumption that anyone who's religious, not socially 'left wing' or anything else is a bigot who should be looked upon with disdain at every possible opportunity. It's great ammunition for certain politicians (like Trump or his UK and European counterparts).

To an European it's always amusing when Americans pretend they have a left wing.

As a Canadian, it's always amusing to me when a European tells an American that the American political system is inferior despite American having roughly the same GDP as the entire European Union, with a fewer percentage of people below the poverty line, with 3/5ths the workforce, with half the EU's unemployment. Maybe we should be less judgmental.

Of course, the implicit "having a more left-er political spectrum is better" opinion is assumed, which is almost always the case for contra-American political claims, but in your defense, may not be the case here.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#160

Post by OJFord »

josinalvo wrote: post #25
OJFord wrote: post #18

Does 'rationalisation' have some strange meaning in this context that I'm unfamiliar with? As far as I'm concerned any view justifying the matter is a rationalisation, left or right wing politically; agree or disagree it's certainly nothing to be upset about being called a rationalisation.

Rationalization is usually said when the conclusion comes first, and the "reasoning" latter. First you decide what you think, then why. This "reasoning" is considered suspect, and called a rationalization.

Ha. I see it now. For some reason on first read I took the author to have hard-left views and objected to the thought that a right-winged attitude might dare to deem something rational.

I think I just presumed someone blogging about being discriminated against for political views would have left-wing political views.

I didn't really realise US academia was so skewed left politically; completely misread the subtext.

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